When to use Microsoft Project, Planner, or To-Do

Want to organize your project tasks, but don't know which Microsoft task management app to use? This article describes the benefits of Project Online, Microsoft Project, Microsoft Planner, and Microsoft To-Do, and points you to how to get it, and how to use it once you have it.

Which app is right for my project?

Is this a solo project or a team project? Are there few deliverables and dependencies, or many? The different Microsoft task management apps are designed for the different project situations you might find yourself in.

Project Online

Track projects, portfolios, and timesheets

Project Online is a web-based application that can work for small, medium, and large businesses. Project managers can create schedules and assign tasks to resources who can then see their tasks and report time. Portfolio managers can look across all projects to see what people are working on.

Microsoft Project

Create a standalone project plan

Microsoft Project is a desktop application that can be great for creating a schedule where you want to organize work into phases, have dependencies between tasks, and so on, either for oneself or for publishing to a team.

Microsoft Planner

Quickly create plans, assign tasks, and collaborate

Planner is a light weight, mobile and web-based application that comes with most Office 365 for business subscriptions. With Planner you and your team can to create plans, assign tasks, chat about tasks, and see charts of your team’s progress. You can also use Planner from within Microsoft Teams and Microsoft SharePoint.

Microsoft To-Do

Prioritize and complete the most important things every day

The To-Do app lets you list all your tasks and sort them so you can focus on what’s important. It features a My Day list for your daily tasks and also allows you to create additional lists to organize your work, projects, groceries, and so on.